The brains of psychopaths are different. What does that mean for laws, crime, sentencing and treatment?
Read Psychopaths: Born evil or with a diseased brain? on BBC.co.uk.
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How to recognize and recover from everyday sociopaths - narcissists
Darwin’s mom,
That “dead inside” kind of person is scary, but the one who “gets glee” out of doing harm, causing pain to others is also scary.
The boy you described who said he was attached to his mother and his girl friend, if he were a psychopath though, may have viewed these women as “possessions” rather than “loved” them in the sense that a non psychopath does. Of course he may not have been a psychopath either…but he definitely sounded troubled.
I have been thinking about tells and clues a lot today…Another thought, My ex sent me this song in and email when he was trying to pull me back into relationship with him. This song is his idea of an apology! Whenever I hear this song anywhere is stops me in my tracks, a trigger for traumatic memories, for me this song will always be about a evil psychopath and if your significant other ever thinks that there is anything “romantic” about this song…RUN, RUN, RUN!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzjUjNPYzLg
When I think back his favorite art, music, movies and poetry were big clues about his inner life or lack thereof!
I can’t seem to get the link to work. The song is “Creep” by Radiohead!
Hosanna,
That’s interesting. My spath called himself, “the creep”. In fact, he even signed one of his apology cards, “the creep”. That was way back in the beginning when he would always apologize after being a creep.
Actually, I think it was me that first started calling him a creep. I meant it as a “term of endearment” but the fact that I came up with such a STRANGE term of endearment for my lover, tells me that my subconscious was SCREAMING at me. But I wouldn’t listen.
Well, he seemed to have really taken to that “pet name”, so much so that he signed the card that way. Oh, and he spelled it correctly. Yeah, it was a tell.
You know, they should teach a class in grade schools: Psychopathic tells 101.
It would save us so much heartache and money.
DarwinsMom
You said something interesting.
“I explained Dr. Kiehl what makes people call psychopaths evil imo” it is not the lack of remorse or the lack of empathy, but the enjoyment and glee they express when they hurt others”.
I think this is interesting – you’re drawing a distinct uniquie thng out – that they get enjoyment or glee from it.
Is that real?
Is there consensus on this?
In all the work that I have read, Dr. Leedom on this site, Hare, the other stuff, I don’t recall any of them calling out GLEE on top of the other attributes.
Athena,
Some psychopaths SEEM TO ME to be “unaware” of any damage they do to someone else…but others seem to totally get GLEE out of causing pain to others. There are some conversations here on LF about that aspect of “glee” and Dr. Simon Baron-Cohen in his measuring of empathy on a bell-curve talks about how autistic individuals don’t have much empathy, but they don’t ENJOY hurting others, where as psychopaths may also have NO empathy, but they seem to enjoy hurting others. So yes, the researchers have taken notice of the “glee” aspect of psychopathy, at least some of them in some circumstances.
Oxy,
does Dr. Baron-Cohen actually discuss the glee? I’m surprised.
I’ve been thinking more and more about autism-spectrum people and I wonder if it isn’t possible to be in that spectrum and ALSO a spath. Could a high functioning asperger enjoy hurting others?
Darwinsmom – I too have seen the glee when one in particular would “get something over someone” and they would think the other person a chump for being naive or honest etc… but that “glee” was not consistent – what was definitely consistent is that – for all the N/S/P’s I’ve known (too many) – no matter what it was about them – they only did something (give a gift or took an action) for others for usually two reasons – to make themselves look good to a larger audience rather than for the express benefit of another – ie: it needs to be public or something they could brag about (hence the hockey rinks you see on women’s hands) or helps make others think they are generous, kind, etc… OR it was an ” I’ll do this for so and so as I know then they will feel obliged to do such and such for me ” – it was bait and the payback/give was always much larger than the payoff/get….
I have real difficulty with the idea that you can intervene early enough with many at the farther end of the scale – I really thinks it depends on where one would fall on the PCL-R rating or some system – ie: higher the score less likely any ability to be redirected early in life… The lower score that is still high in lack of empathy etc – that might be what you could call a Shadow Syndrome – ie: not full blown, still damaging and often why so many of them pass muster for awhile and the damage is insidious and not over to such a degree – they are able to blend in and it is death for the rest of us by a thousand cuts from them….
I have a member of my family who at age 5 started showing signs – no one in my family would believe it if I called it what it is but my mother said for years – I am waiting for the day he hits his mother (my sister)… Now because he is smart an has developed manners my mother thinks he is ok – he isn’t any different – just more subtle about it. He had all the cousins together this summer and he got them to play Russian Roulette with a toy gun. Toy gun today – real gun in 4-6 years I bet. And he knows how to make it look like one of the other kids is responsible for whatever happens. I keep my kids away from him.
Ooops – in previous post the biggest feature to me is that they are entirely self interested. Their needs and their needs lobe are what matter – like a parasite they will live off of others and move from a host when they have sapped it of everything they can get or when a juicier host presents itself…
Sky, yes, Baron-Cohen talks about the levels of empathy on a bell curve, and the lower end (loss empathy) has autistic and psychopaths both in the (relative) “zero” level –he calls the autistic Zero-positive and the psychopath zero-negative because FEW if any of the autistics seem to ENJOY hurting others, they are more UNaware of hurt to others, but the psychopaths realize they are hurting others and seem to find enjoyment in the pain caused, rather than by just not realizing they are causing pain.
I highly recommend reading the book “The Science of Evil” by Baron-Cohen, it has a GREAT DEAL of information for us who are interested in studying psychopathy and/or the lack of empathy.
Breck-Girl, I knew a girl, a kid in the neighborhood who was all about getting the OTHER KIDS TO THROW ROCKS, but she never was the “guilty” one.